Reading Challenges
Reading Challenges Overview
Not Modern Nonfiction
Not
a Modern Textbook
The Specific Meaning
The Multiple Meanings
The Rigorous Meanings
The
Secrets of Sun Tzu
The Specific Meaning of Terms
“Know the enemy and know yourself.
Your victory will be painless."
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War 10:5.15-16
The two lines above appear rather late in Sun Tzu's
work, the tenth chapter out of thirteen. At this point in the book, every term in these lines has a very specific definition. To understand these
lines, you must first be familiar with the concepts "to
know," "enemy," "victory," and "pain."
In addition to these specific terms, the book has defined an array of
relationships among these concepts. The Chinese tradition taught—as modern science
does—that key concepts are beyond words. They are best expressed in formal
relationships, which we know as formulas. The formula E=MC2, for example, defines the formal relationship between matter and energy.
"To know" is one of the nine major concepts of the work and is
expressed in more than 150 formulas. To give you an idea of how different Sun Tzu's
concept of "knowledge" is from the casual use of the term, by his definition
all knowledge is a matter of probabilities rather than certainties. Absolute values
are not as meaningful as
the relative comparisons. Knowledge factors in the likelihood of self-deception,
intentional misdirection, and motivation.
Even a simple idea is very different from what we
expect. To Sun Tzu, an "enemy" means someone to
whom you must compare your capabilities and your goals.
Because "to know" requires comparisons, your enemy's characteristics are needed
to define your own.
This brings us to "victory." "Victory" does not mean winning battles or
defeating enemies. Its simplest definition is securing a position that cannot be challenged easily by the
opponent and which offers many benefits or resources.
Finally, we have "painless." "Pain" means the cost of conflict. Cost has
three specific dimensions, so pain shares those dimensions. "Painless" means limiting
these costs to the degree that they are
not felt.
You might want to read our section on
the value of adaptive strategy to
understand more about Sun Tzu's focus. If you already realize that you need to learn more, we
recommend that you start on the path to mastering strategy with any of our books or audios or one of our
on-line strategy courses.
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